Newkirk, Bob oral history

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“Today is Monday, October 18, 2010. I am Aleksandra Polit and I am interviewing Bob Newkirk at 8309 Reef Court [Indianapolis, Indiana] over the phone. Mr. Newkirk is a reference from a teacher. Mr. Newkirk is 89 years old and was born on December 21st, 1920. Mr. Newkirk served in WWII. Mr. Newkirk started in the 11th Infantry and held the following rank: Private.
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Aleksandra Polit: First question, were you drafted or did you enlist?
Bob Newkirk: I enlisted.
AP: Where were you living at the time?
BN: I lived in Bedford, Indiana.
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AP: Why did you join?
BN: Well, I didn’t have a job and I didn’t have enough money to go to school. I’d only completed the 11th grade, but really I didn’t get anything after the 8th grade because I had to work on a farm. I just started school and then had to stop and go to work on the farm and then I could never catch up after that so really I only went to the 8th grade.
AP: Why did you pick the service branch you joined?
BN: Well, I really didn’t! I wanted to be in the navy, but I went up there on a Wednesday at noon and they only stayed half a day on Wednesday and only half a day on Saturday. So I got there right at noon and the navy just closed up and nobody was in the office, so I went down the hallway and there was a solider in the army sealing up some paper work so I went in there and asked if I could sign up for the army. And he said, “Come on in. I will sign you up.” So he did.
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AP: Do you recall your first days in the service?
BN: Well, as soon as I got there, a sergeant put me on a Greyhound bus and sent me to Fort Harrison, Indiana, which was right outside of Indianapolis and they assigned me to M Company. The 11th Infantry and it was the 5th division at the time and I was assigned to M Company. So, when I got there they put me right to work. They didn’t even give me clothes or anything yet. Everybody had gone home for Christmas, all the officers and biggest part of the people enlisted. They had a work detail still there and still cranked out weapons and everything and they built these Cosmoline which was a heavy grease all over those weapons and then we put them in a box and sealed the box up so we could ship it. So, that’s the first day I got there.
AP: Were you in a boot camp sort of thing?
BN: No, I was at regular concrete barracks. After Fort Harrison, I went to the old barracks out there at Fort Ben, Indiana.
AP: What was your training experience like?
BN: Well, I hadn’t had any yet I just got there and I was putting grease all over the weapons to ship them over seas. They didn’t want them to rust, that's why they were putting the Cosmoline on them for.
AP: Do you remember arriving at Pearl Harbor? What was it like?
BN: Well, I never got right to Pearl Harbor. I was talking to them guys when I was putting the Cosmoline on the weapons, I signed up for the Philippines, that’s where I signed up for and I get to Fort Harrison and they were getting ready to ship out too. I was told we were going to the Philippines and I asked them guys, I said, “How long do you think it will take to get to the Philippines?” and they said, “It’s going to take a long time, we’re going to Iceland.” Well, I was trying to get out of cold weather instead of going into. I like to have fainted, I said, “Holy mackerel, I don’t want to go to Iceland I signed up for the Philippines!” so I went down to see the first sergeant and I said, “Them guys up there told me we were going to Iceland I told them I signed up for the Philippines.” He said “Well, boy we are going Iceland.” Of course, I was feeling sorry for myself and so a couple days later the first sergeant called me in and said “Get your gear together you’re going to Fort Slocom, New York and you will be the supportive deportation for overseas assignment.” I said, “Well, I like to do the order for you I was looking forward to Fort Slocom.” He says, “You stay on this train and the porter will tell you when you get there and he will be sure you get there.” So, about three days later we get to Fort Slocom. He said, “Boy, this is where you get off at” I get off and Fort Slocum is out on an island so I had to take a ferry boat over to the island and I was at Fort Slocum for a couple of months. It wasn’t that long. Then one day they put us on a barge and took us down the Hudson River down to Brooklyn Navy Base and then they sent me to Panama and I went to the Panama Canal and I was there a few days and then we went on to Hawaii and then the Philippines and when I get into Hawaii they say there’s a change in orders. There’s only supposed to be so many in each order like Panama, Hawaii, and the Philippines and the Philippines was getting too many people and they were getting overloaded and they said everybody from A-M will stay on board this ship and go on to the Philippines and everyone from N on has to get off here in Hawaii. My name is Newkirk and I was the first one they threw off, see, and I thought I was getting the raw deal, but later on if I was in the Philippines I would have either been dead or prison for 5 years. So, the lord must have been looking after us, you see. So, I get off in Hawaii and they put me in the 21st infantry and the H company of the Hawaiian division and that was the first day of March 1941. So, after I get there I really liked Hawaii. It was a good place to serve because I wanted a warm place no matter where I signed up. I really liked it there, so I was content that I didn’t go on to the Philippines and it was still warm and everything there so I stayed on the Hawaiian division until October 1st 1941, they made two divisions out of the Hawaiian division. They made the 24th division and the 25th division. Well, the 19th and the 21st Infantry made up the 24th Division and the 27th and the 35th regiments made up the 25th Division so the first day of October we became the 24th Division, sixty days later the Japanese bombed pearl harbor and we were at war so we’d only been a division sixty days when the war started and that was my first combat at Pearl Harbor December the 7th , 1941.
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AP: What was your job assignment in Hawaii?
BN: Well, the first two months I was the poorest soldier there was I guess, everything I did was wrong. I was kind of a wise guy and I wasn’t belligerent or anything I just didn’t like take orders too good. Well, that didn’t work in the army and the sergeant who was on me like a wet blanket and everything that I’d done was wrong and I pulled every button there was to pull and they worked me doing something hours upon hours it was all duty time. So finally I wised up; I was like hey, “I’m not getting the hang of this way.” So, I was only making twenty-one dollars a month and they took four dollars out for my laundry, which was very cheap even then. I wore at least two uniforms a day, and the washers doing the laundry, they took a quarter for all soldier’s hull and ten cents for all captain’s garb so I only drug up sixteen dollars a month. There was a firing range and targets would go by, and they would go at different angles and different speed and I was in the 50th Cavalry machineguns. I just kept feeling them and shooting all the targets to pieces. The head commander happened to be going by and there I was just shooting all the targets to pieces and he stopped and said “1st sergeant, make that man a 6th class.” That was three dollars more a month. So, I get to thinking that if I stopped being a wise guy and started doing something right, maybe I could make some money here. So, that made me 24 dollars a month and I thought that was a lot of money at the time. So, I started soldiering and I went right on up the ladder. When I really got to soldiering, I started making money and I got promotions. I became PFC. So, I was a PFC when the war started and shortly after the war started I made corporal and squad leader and then I went right up the line and never skipped a grade: sergeant, staff sergeant and when the war was over I was a staff sergeant but I was always in the machineguns in the 50th Cavalry and I was under eighty-one mortars and most of my combat was in eighty-one mortars but they really get the job done they used good weapons so I was happy in the eighty-one mortars. So, I was in the eight-one mortars and finally, I was a senior gun captain and senior squad leader and I made staff sergeant. So, I was in the senior machine gunning squad leader while I was acting as a section sergeant. So, I was acting in a section sergeant and all through the Philippines. I was acting section sergeant and then I got hurt over there and I came back home [interruption] When we left Hawaii we didn’t have those ships to leave on because they were to busy hauling cargo, troops, and everything else so the 25th Division went to the Guadalcanal. I was down there, and they sent the ships back and the 24th Division was going to New Guinea. Before we got to New Guinea, the Japs was already in New Guinea so they were bombing Darwin, Australia, which was just a short distance from New Guinea, and they was bombing Darwin, Australia. They were there for all the cattle and the sheep and the food and stuff like that, that Australia has. Well, Australia only had old men and young boys there because they only had two divisions all together because they had been going since 1939, fighting for England. Australia is a subject of England, so they were over there fighting for England in North Africa. Well, we were on the way to New Guinea and they sent us to Australia to block off the Japanese coming into there. So, they quit bombing Darwin Australia as soon as we get there because they thought it was going to be an easy thing just run in there and take Australia, you see. But we started getting there and they weren’t ready for that yet. So, we stayed there for quite a while and two more divisions came up there, the 22nd and the 41st Division and then finally we went on to New Guinea. We walked, we went all the way up New Guinea from the south end to the north end and we chased the Japanese all the way up to Burma at the north end. There were lakes all around them, whenever we get to these we would get on a ship and go a few miles up and get ahead of the Japanese and they was just walking right into us, you see. So, that’s what we were doing. We floated all the way up the north end of Hollandia and it took several months chasing them to Burma there and finally we got up there and we cleaned all the Japs out of New Guinea. They wasn’t a force of any size you know so we had them whipped up there. Then, we were going on to the Philippines. So, we went on to the Philippines and we went in on the 20th of October, 1944. We went into the Philippines and we went all the way up to Lady Valley and we fought them all the way to the north end of Lady. Then, we got hit by mountains up there and the Japanese had the high ground and we was cruising along pretty good up the valley, then we got up there they had dug in on the top of that mountain and they was looking right down on us so when we started up there for two weeks we could hardly get out of the hole they were up above us. When you got up out of the hole you had a dozen people firing at you. So, we were pretty much in a hole for two weeks we tried to keep going up the hill but we got pushed off every time we went up there so in the end we lost 46% of our people in fourteen days up there and we were so weak we couldn’t advance, and we couldn’t even go back because that would let them have it, and we would have to do it all again. We had orders to hold our ground, nobody left as long you could still fire a rifle. So, finally they sent a whole division to replete our regiment up there and they went right on through and finally after a few days took the ridge and got the Japs on the run again. Shortly after, I got sent back home to the states but I lost a whole section of men up there. There��s only three of them still living and myself. I lost one of my mortars. I got hit but it wasn’t bad enough to leave the hill. I could still fire so I couldn’t leave the hill. So, finally, I got back. We hadn’t had anything to eat for three days. We couldn’t eat or get water, either one. They gave us ammunition before the U.S. saved us but we were running out of medicine, and the doctors were running out of everything out there. So, we finally got back to the rest camp and the 19th Infantry, our sister regiment, was going on another invasion of another island and they didn’t have enough people to go so they asked for volunteers from the 21st Infantry. I was in the 21st Infantry so I didn’t have no people. I lost a whole section of people so I volunteered to go with the 19th Infantry on another landing so I got down to loading board which was right on the beach there and I was supposed to join up to the 19th Infantry there. So, I was waiting there to go on the landing. So, one day they pulled in a bunch of landing barges and they dropped their ramps down on the beach and we were all lined up ready to get on the landing craft in front of the ship. Then, it started thundering and lightening out at sea and it looked like a big storm coming in out there. Then the barges all lifted their ramps and went back to the ship and we didn’t know what was going on. Later on, we found out they were having a second battle, a navy battle out there. It wasn’t a storm. It was a big battle going on out there. It looked like lightning and thunder we could hear thunder and big guns going off and it looked like lightning when the big guns firing. Before that was over they called out the ones that was going back home and I got called to go back home and finally the naval battle was over and there was a ship in the harbor waiting to go back. It was a hospital ship. It was taking all the wounded and everybody back to the states. So, I got sent back home and it took thirty-three days to come home from the Philippines and I came in at San Francisco. [interruption]
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AP: How did you stay in touch with your family, during the war?
BN: Well, I hate to say this but I didn’t. Like I told you, I didn’t have any money to go to school when I came back from the C.C. camp and I hadn’t had any education so I sent $23 home, my mother was dead, she died back in the early part of the depression, but my dad, he didn’t have no job either. So, I sent $23 home and he said he was going to keep it for me to go to school when I get out of the C.C. camp, I knew I needed more schooling, I was dumber than a bucket of bolts, but I did know I needed more schooling. So, I was sending this $23 home to dad and he said he was going to keep it for me but he didn’t have no money and the rest of the kids, there were four kids at home, so dad had to spend my money. I mean, you got money there and you’re in a house and you got no food, well, you got to spend it, see, so I was kind of mad at my dad when I left home but later on I see where he didn’t have no money and my brothers and sisters needed food. So, I finally wised up and I thought, “Well I can’t be mad the rest of my life.” So, I got over my mad spell. Anyhow, all during the war I never wrote much to my family, my dad, or anything and my brothers and sisters were too young to be writing to me, but I had one school teacher, she would write me letters to tell me where my school friends had been sent to whether they were in the navy or whatever they were in. So, where they were at and stuff. She was the only one I wrote to all during the war. So, finally, I got back and I was over my mad spell, but when I got back to San Francisco they gave us our clothes and everything out there and we were at a place called Angel Island right across from Alcatraz, you’ve heard of Alcatraz? It was a big prison island out there. We could see Alcatraz from our little island. So, anyhow, they took us over and put us on a train. There were about 200 of us that came down on that ship and they were sending us back home to be reassigned, so there were 200 guys there. So, the stranger told me put all them guys on that train, there were three cars there that we slept in then we had to go to the dining cart as we traveled across the states there. They told me to take them 200 guys and their reserves back to Camp Atterbury. I didn’t know where Camp Atterbury was at it wasn’t here when I left. They had built Camp Atterbury after the war had started. So, I said, “Well, Major, I don’t know where Camp Atterbury is at” He said, “Well, just keep these guys on this train. This train knows where Edinbury’s at. It’s going to Atterbury” So, I got all those guys back to Atterbury. Then, I got twenty-one days delayed route to go home. I hadn’t been home in four and a half years and that’s the first time I’d been home in four and a half and I got home and stayed there for, I think, two weeks then I had to report to Miami beach rest camp and I went down there on a train because I had tickets. So I got down there and they were trying to fatten us up and I weighed 150 [pounds] when I went in the army and when I came home I weighed 124 [pounds]. We hadn’t been eating too good and some guys didn’t eat at all. I was sick. I had malaria and I had all kinds of diseases and everything. So, I hadn’t gained too much weight in fact I lost quite a bit of weight, twenty-six pounds, I was so thin you could almost see through me and they were fattening us up down there. We could eat any time of day. Twenty-four hours a day whenever we wanted to eat. Just go into the cafeteria, and it was open all the time, and you get so hungry and you just go in there and get something to eat. I drank milk like it was going out of style and ate pizzas. I love pizzas. Then they were going to reassign us and they made up a list of everyone who was going. I wanted to go on that bond drive. They would send the infantry out to these different little towns and we would set up a little bon fire and stuff like that and fire blanks and put up a little war scene there it would be some movie actress or somebody coming to sell bonds and that’s how they were supporting to war. So, I put in for that but I didn’t make it. I was the only one they sent to Fort Hayes. I said, “Why did they pull me out?” They said, “I don’t know. That’s what the orders are.” So, I went to Fort Hayes. So, I get to Fort Hayes and I asked to see the first sergeant. I was reporting for duty. He said, “Well, I don’t have anything on you. I didn’t even know you was coming.” “Well, here’s the orders I got” and he said, “Well, have you had supper?” I said, “No.” He said, “Well, go into Columbus, Ohio, up there and Fort Hayes is just on the edge of Columbus, Ohio.” So, I went into Columbus, Ohio and got something to eat. He then said, “Wake up in the morning is 6o’clock I will try to find out something between now and then.” So, the next morning I was there and he said, “You’re not supposed to be at Fort Hazelhigh. You’re supposed to be at fort Harrison Indiana they made a mistake on the orders.” So, they put me on a Greyhound bus and sent me to Fort Harrison. So, I got there and they sent me to the hospital for all my diseases. I was so skinny, they finally got me fattened up a little bit. I had malaria twenty-seven times. So, I stayed there about four months and in July of ’45, I got back home and they put me in a hospital and I was there for four months. They came around one day, and said, “Do you want an honorable discharge?” It was the 23rd of July of 1945. I said, “I’m staying in the army” They said, “We got to clean these hospital” they said, “You have to take an honorable or medical discharge.” and I said, “You mean I can’t stay in the army?” They said, “Nope, you gotta go. We got to clean these hospitals out. They’re expecting 1,000,000 casualties in the first few days they get to Japan and they are gonna fill all these hospitals. So, we got to get everyone out of here that can walk out.” So, they gave me a 30% disability and threw me out on the 23rd of July 1945. Well, the 6th of August they dropped the atomic bomb and the war was over. If it was only a couple more weeks I would have stayed in the regular army, but I was out with disability. So, I had an honorable discharge with a 30% disability so I couldn’t get a job I didn’t have no education I had averaged 8th grade, I imagine, because I didn’t learn much in high school at all because I had to work on a farm. So, I tried to get a job but I couldn’t get a job finally I thought, “I‘m going to have to lie to these people and tell them I’m something and I’m not.” So, I found that an International Harvester was hiring machine operators and bill press operators. Well, I didn’t know what to do I had never seen one of those machines but I thought, “I gotta lie to somebody to get a job.” So, I went out there told him I needed a job and I said I’m a bill press operator and a machine operator before the war but I’ve been gone six years and I forgot a lot of it. So, they hired me and they said, “When can you go to work?” I said, “Right now.” I didn’t want to leave that place without going to work. So, they called the boss to come and get me to give me a job, So, I was going down there and I said “Hey, I don’t know what lay is. I don’t know anything about none of these.” He said, “You don’t need to know any of these. All you have to do is turn a switch on and start the motor and then change the pistons as they put the blades in the pistons.” You don’t have to know nothing to do that. You just turn a switch on and when they get there the motor shuts off and you put them on the conveyor and when you done that there were four more and you put them four on and start them motor. I had two motors and I would turn around and they would go off so I didn’t have time to spit you couldn’t do nothing so I didn’t like that job but it was still a job. Then they told me I was going to have to join a union after ninety days. Well, I didn’t like unions I’d never heard of a union only I was over in New Guinea and we got word that the coal miners were going on a strike for a dollar a day more to work in the mines. I wouldn’t have gone down there for $10 more. Well, they asked for a dollar a day more and they wouldn’t work until they got it so they went on a strike. They almost stopped the whole war. All the machines didn’t have coal to operate so I said, “I don’t want no part of that if they got that much power.” I didn’t want to be a part of that. So I didn’t like the unions and I never did join a union. So I worked there ninety days and I quit because every day I got off I was tired from the job. So, I was went to work for Indianapolis Citizens Gas and I worked there for thirty-four years, but I was only making $42 a week. I had gotten married and had a baby by that time, so, I need another job so I got another job. I got off at 4:30 for the gas company and I would jump on a bus and would get off at the post office and work from 5 to midnight. Then, I had to go home I was only getting four hours of sleep a night. So, I kept that up for quite a while finally someone said they were starting up the National Guard again. This disbanded the national guard after the war 30th Divison. So, I joined the national guard and I kept my two jobs for almost all my life, for thirty-four years. So, in the end I ended up with thirty-six years in the military when I retired. I never lost rank and I took every step up the ladder. I was private, PFC, and so on. I went all the way to A9, which is high as you can as enlisted then. But, I did it with common sense I didn’t have no education I didn’t know how to handle after I had got the hang of it but the soldiers of the regular army I thought were mean but they were just making me deal with what I had to. I really learned from those guys even though I didn’t think I was at the time. So I never had no trouble I was first sergeant for seventeen years and I wore six stripes for some time from 1950-1992 so that’s like forty-two years. So I done pretty good for a dummy and I always enjoyed the military but I sure had to put in a lot of work and had two jobs all my life so I stayed till ‘92 and I had thirty-six years in the active and twelve in the reserve. The military has been good to me I get the medical for the retirement from the military and social security and I also get a gas coupon in retirement so I live happy and everything and I have no regret. The only thing I do regret is I wasn’t around my kids much. My wife raised the kids. I married a girl from Virginia. In two months, about fifty years. She died in 1995 and I’ve never remarried. I’m getting awful feeble. It’s getting hard to breathe, I’m getting emphysema, but I have no regrets. I don’t know if you got anything out of that or not.
AP: Do you recall the day your service ended?
BN: Oh yea. I remember that. The outfit came out for that and they gave me a couple medals and ribbons I had been given and one of the generals pinned them on me and then they had a retirement party for me and they gave me all different kinds of things. All the ribbons that I was entitled to and everything I was entitled to wear and I got twenty-three medals put in an all glass stand where you can hang it on the wall. All my ribbons and everything was in that thing hanging on the wall. They spent quite a bit of money and then they gave me a whole lot of different gifts and things for my retirement. Then I had my whole family up there and everyone shook hands with me and they took the flags down that they flew that day and they gave me the American flag they flew that day. I have no regrets and I’ve been treated better and I’m the state chairman for the Pearl Harbor survivors for eight years. I can’t get rid of it because nobody is able to take it. I’m more able bodied than any of them. So, I’m the state chairman for Pearl Harbor Survivors.
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“Today is Monday, October 18, 2010. I am Aleksandra Polit and I am interviewing Bob Newkirk at 8309 Reef Court [Indianapolis, Indiana] over the phone. Mr. Newkirk is a reference from a teacher. Mr. Newkirk is 89 years old and was born on December 21st, 1920. Mr. Newkirk served in WWII. Mr. Newkirk started in the 11th Infantry and held the following rank: Private.
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Aleksandra Polit: First question, were you drafted or did you enlist?
Bob Newkirk: I enlisted.
AP: Where were you living at the time?
BN: I lived in Bedford, Indiana.
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AP: Why did you join?
BN: Well, I didn’t have a job and I didn’t have enough money to go to school. I’d only completed the 11th grade, but really I didn’t get anything after the 8th grade because I had to work on a farm. I just started school and then had to stop and go to work on the farm and then I could never catch up after that so really I only went to the 8th grade.
AP: Why did you pick the service branch you joined?
BN: Well, I really didn’t! I wanted to be in the navy, but I went up there on a Wednesday at noon and they only stayed half a day on Wednesday and only half a day on Saturday. So I got there right at noon and the navy just closed up and nobody was in the office, so I went down the hallway and there was a solider in the army sealing up some paper work so I went in there and asked if I could sign up for the army. And he said, “Come on in. I will sign you up.” So he did.
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AP: Do you recall your first days in the service?
BN: Well, as soon as I got there, a sergeant put me on a Greyhound bus and sent me to Fort Harrison, Indiana, which was right outside of Indianapolis and they assigned me to M Company. The 11th Infantry and it was the 5th division at the time and I was assigned to M Company. So, when I got there they put me right to work. They didn’t even give me clothes or anything yet. Everybody had gone home for Christmas, all the officers and biggest part of the people enlisted. They had a work detail still there and still cranked out weapons and everything and they built these Cosmoline which was a heavy grease all over those weapons and then we put them in a box and sealed the box up so we could ship it. So, that’s the first day I got there.
AP: Were you in a boot camp sort of thing?
BN: No, I was at regular concrete barracks. After Fort Harrison, I went to the old barracks out there at Fort Ben, Indiana.
AP: What was your training experience like?
BN: Well, I hadn’t had any yet I just got there and I was putting grease all over the weapons to ship them over seas. They didn’t want them to rust, that's why they were putting the Cosmoline on them for.
AP: Do you remember arriving at Pearl Harbor? What was it like?
BN: Well, I never got right to Pearl Harbor. I was talking to them guys when I was putting the Cosmoline on the weapons, I signed up for the Philippines, that’s where I signed up for and I get to Fort Harrison and they were getting ready to ship out too. I was told we were going to the Philippines and I asked them guys, I said, “How long do you think it will take to get to the Philippines?” and they said, “It’s going to take a long time, we’re going to Iceland.” Well, I was trying to get out of cold weather instead of going into. I like to have fainted, I said, “Holy mackerel, I don’t want to go to Iceland I signed up for the Philippines!” so I went down to see the first sergeant and I said, “Them guys up there told me we were going to Iceland I told them I signed up for the Philippines.” He said “Well, boy we are going Iceland.” Of course, I was feeling sorry for myself and so a couple days later the first sergeant called me in and said “Get your gear together you’re going to Fort Slocom, New York and you will be the supportive deportation for overseas assignment.” I said, “Well, I like to do the order for you I was looking forward to Fort Slocom.” He says, “You stay on this train and the porter will tell you when you get there and he will be sure you get there.” So, about three days later we get to Fort Slocom. He said, “Boy, this is where you get off at” I get off and Fort Slocum is out on an island so I had to take a ferry boat over to the island and I was at Fort Slocum for a couple of months. It wasn’t that long. Then one day they put us on a barge and took us down the Hudson River down to Brooklyn Navy Base and then they sent me to Panama and I went to the Panama Canal and I was there a few days and then we went on to Hawaii and then the Philippines and when I get into Hawaii they say there’s a change in orders. There’s only supposed to be so many in each order like Panama, Hawaii, and the Philippines and the Philippines was getting too many people and they were getting overloaded and they said everybody from A-M will stay on board this ship and go on to the Philippines and everyone from N on has to get off here in Hawaii. My name is Newkirk and I was the first one they threw off, see, and I thought I was getting the raw deal, but later on if I was in the Philippines I would have either been dead or prison for 5 years. So, the lord must have been looking after us, you see. So, I get off in Hawaii and they put me in the 21st infantry and the H company of the Hawaiian division and that was the first day of March 1941. So, after I get there I really liked Hawaii. It was a good place to serve because I wanted a warm place no matter where I signed up. I really liked it there, so I was content that I didn’t go on to the Philippines and it was still warm and everything there so I stayed on the Hawaiian division until October 1st 1941, they made two divisions out of the Hawaiian division. They made the 24th division and the 25th division. Well, the 19th and the 21st Infantry made up the 24th Division and the 27th and the 35th regiments made up the 25th Division so the first day of October we became the 24th Division, sixty days later the Japanese bombed pearl harbor and we were at war so we’d only been a division sixty days when the war started and that was my first combat at Pearl Harbor December the 7th , 1941.
[0:10:35.4]
AP: What was your job assignment in Hawaii?
BN: Well, the first two months I was the poorest soldier there was I guess, everything I did was wrong. I was kind of a wise guy and I wasn’t belligerent or anything I just didn’t like take orders too good. Well, that didn’t work in the army and the sergeant who was on me like a wet blanket and everything that I’d done was wrong and I pulled every button there was to pull and they worked me doing something hours upon hours it was all duty time. So finally I wised up; I was like hey, “I’m not getting the hang of this way.” So, I was only making twenty-one dollars a month and they took four dollars out for my laundry, which was very cheap even then. I wore at least two uniforms a day, and the washers doing the laundry, they took a quarter for all soldier’s hull and ten cents for all captain’s garb so I only drug up sixteen dollars a month. There was a firing range and targets would go by, and they would go at different angles and different speed and I was in the 50th Cavalry machineguns. I just kept feeling them and shooting all the targets to pieces. The head commander happened to be going by and there I was just shooting all the targets to pieces and he stopped and said “1st sergeant, make that man a 6th class.” That was three dollars more a month. So, I get to thinking that if I stopped being a wise guy and started doing something right, maybe I could make some money here. So, that made me 24 dollars a month and I thought that was a lot of money at the time. So, I started soldiering and I went right on up the ladder. When I really got to soldiering, I started making money and I got promotions. I became PFC. So, I was a PFC when the war started and shortly after the war started I made corporal and squad leader and then I went right up the line and never skipped a grade: sergeant, staff sergeant and when the war was over I was a staff sergeant but I was always in the machineguns in the 50th Cavalry and I was under eighty-one mortars and most of my combat was in eighty-one mortars but they really get the job done they used good weapons so I was happy in the eighty-one mortars. So, I was in the eight-one mortars and finally, I was a senior gun captain and senior squad leader and I made staff sergeant. So, I was in the senior machine gunning squad leader while I was acting as a section sergeant. So, I was acting in a section sergeant and all through the Philippines. I was acting section sergeant and then I got hurt over there and I came back home [interruption] When we left Hawaii we didn’t have those ships to leave on because they were to busy hauling cargo, troops, and everything else so the 25th Division went to the Guadalcanal. I was down there, and they sent the ships back and the 24th Division was going to New Guinea. Before we got to New Guinea, the Japs was already in New Guinea so they were bombing Darwin, Australia, which was just a short distance from New Guinea, and they was bombing Darwin, Australia. They were there for all the cattle and the sheep and the food and stuff like that, that Australia has. Well, Australia only had old men and young boys there because they only had two divisions all together because they had been going since 1939, fighting for England. Australia is a subject of England, so they were over there fighting for England in North Africa. Well, we were on the way to New Guinea and they sent us to Australia to block off the Japanese coming into there. So, they quit bombing Darwin Australia as soon as we get there because they thought it was going to be an easy thing just run in there and take Australia, you see. But we started getting there and they weren’t ready for that yet. So, we stayed there for quite a while and two more divisions came up there, the 22nd and the 41st Division and then finally we went on to New Guinea. We walked, we went all the way up New Guinea from the south end to the north end and we chased the Japanese all the way up to Burma at the north end. There were lakes all around them, whenever we get to these we would get on a ship and go a few miles up and get ahead of the Japanese and they was just walking right into us, you see. So, that’s what we were doing. We floated all the way up the north end of Hollandia and it took several months chasing them to Burma there and finally we got up there and we cleaned all the Japs out of New Guinea. They wasn’t a force of any size you know so we had them whipped up there. Then, we were going on to the Philippines. So, we went on to the Philippines and we went in on the 20th of October, 1944. We went into the Philippines and we went all the way up to Lady Valley and we fought them all the way to the north end of Lady. Then, we got hit by mountains up there and the Japanese had the high ground and we was cruising along pretty good up the valley, then we got up there they had dug in on the top of that mountain and they was looking right down on us so when we started up there for two weeks we could hardly get out of the hole they were up above us. When you got up out of the hole you had a dozen people firing at you. So, we were pretty much in a hole for two weeks we tried to keep going up the hill but we got pushed off every time we went up there so in the end we lost 46% of our people in fourteen days up there and we were so weak we couldn’t advance, and we couldn’t even go back because that would let them have it, and we would have to do it all again. We had orders to hold our ground, nobody left as long you could still fire a rifle. So, finally they sent a whole division to replete our regiment up there and they went right on through and finally after a few days took the ridge and got the Japs on the run again. Shortly after, I got sent back home to the states but I lost a whole section of men up there. There��s only three of them still living and myself. I lost one of my mortars. I got hit but it wasn’t bad enough to leave the hill. I could still fire so I couldn’t leave the hill. So, finally, I got back. We hadn’t had anything to eat for three days. We couldn’t eat or get water, either one. They gave us ammunition before the U.S. saved us but we were running out of medicine, and the doctors were running out of everything out there. So, we finally got back to the rest camp and the 19th Infantry, our sister regiment, was going on another invasion of another island and they didn’t have enough people to go so they asked for volunteers from the 21st Infantry. I was in the 21st Infantry so I didn’t have no people. I lost a whole section of people so I volunteered to go with the 19th Infantry on another landing so I got down to loading board which was right on the beach there and I was supposed to join up to the 19th Infantry there. So, I was waiting there to go on the landing. So, one day they pulled in a bunch of landing barges and they dropped their ramps down on the beach and we were all lined up ready to get on the landing craft in front of the ship. Then, it started thundering and lightening out at sea and it looked like a big storm coming in out there. Then the barges all lifted their ramps and went back to the ship and we didn’t know what was going on. Later on, we found out they were having a second battle, a navy battle out there. It wasn’t a storm. It was a big battle going on out there. It looked like lightning and thunder we could hear thunder and big guns going off and it looked like lightning when the big guns firing. Before that was over they called out the ones that was going back home and I got called to go back home and finally the naval battle was over and there was a ship in the harbor waiting to go back. It was a hospital ship. It was taking all the wounded and everybody back to the states. So, I got sent back home and it took thirty-three days to come home from the Philippines and I came in at San Francisco. [interruption]
[0:27:12.8]
AP: How did you stay in touch with your family, during the war?
BN: Well, I hate to say this but I didn’t. Like I told you, I didn’t have any money to go to school when I came back from the C.C. camp and I hadn’t had any education so I sent $23 home, my mother was dead, she died back in the early part of the depression, but my dad, he didn’t have no job either. So, I sent $23 home and he said he was going to keep it for me to go to school when I get out of the C.C. camp, I knew I needed more schooling, I was dumber than a bucket of bolts, but I did know I needed more schooling. So, I was sending this $23 home to dad and he said he was going to keep it for me but he didn’t have no money and the rest of the kids, there were four kids at home, so dad had to spend my money. I mean, you got money there and you’re in a house and you got no food, well, you got to spend it, see, so I was kind of mad at my dad when I left home but later on I see where he didn’t have no money and my brothers and sisters needed food. So, I finally wised up and I thought, “Well I can’t be mad the rest of my life.” So, I got over my mad spell. Anyhow, all during the war I never wrote much to my family, my dad, or anything and my brothers and sisters were too young to be writing to me, but I had one school teacher, she would write me letters to tell me where my school friends had been sent to whether they were in the navy or whatever they were in. So, where they were at and stuff. She was the only one I wrote to all during the war. So, finally, I got back and I was over my mad spell, but when I got back to San Francisco they gave us our clothes and everything out there and we were at a place called Angel Island right across from Alcatraz, you’ve heard of Alcatraz? It was a big prison island out there. We could see Alcatraz from our little island. So, anyhow, they took us over and put us on a train. There were about 200 of us that came down on that ship and they were sending us back home to be reassigned, so there were 200 guys there. So, the stranger told me put all them guys on that train, there were three cars there that we slept in then we had to go to the dining cart as we traveled across the states there. They told me to take them 200 guys and their reserves back to Camp Atterbury. I didn’t know where Camp Atterbury was at it wasn’t here when I left. They had built Camp Atterbury after the war had started. So, I said, “Well, Major, I don’t know where Camp Atterbury is at” He said, “Well, just keep these guys on this train. This train knows where Edinbury’s at. It’s going to Atterbury” So, I got all those guys back to Atterbury. Then, I got twenty-one days delayed route to go home. I hadn’t been home in four and a half years and that’s the first time I’d been home in four and a half and I got home and stayed there for, I think, two weeks then I had to report to Miami beach rest camp and I went down there on a train because I had tickets. So I got down there and they were trying to fatten us up and I weighed 150 [pounds] when I went in the army and when I came home I weighed 124 [pounds]. We hadn’t been eating too good and some guys didn’t eat at all. I was sick. I had malaria and I had all kinds of diseases and everything. So, I hadn’t gained too much weight in fact I lost quite a bit of weight, twenty-six pounds, I was so thin you could almost see through me and they were fattening us up down there. We could eat any time of day. Twenty-four hours a day whenever we wanted to eat. Just go into the cafeteria, and it was open all the time, and you get so hungry and you just go in there and get something to eat. I drank milk like it was going out of style and ate pizzas. I love pizzas. Then they were going to reassign us and they made up a list of everyone who was going. I wanted to go on that bond drive. They would send the infantry out to these different little towns and we would set up a little bon fire and stuff like that and fire blanks and put up a little war scene there it would be some movie actress or somebody coming to sell bonds and that’s how they were supporting to war. So, I put in for that but I didn’t make it. I was the only one they sent to Fort Hayes. I said, “Why did they pull me out?” They said, “I don’t know. That’s what the orders are.” So, I went to Fort Hayes. So, I get to Fort Hayes and I asked to see the first sergeant. I was reporting for duty. He said, “Well, I don’t have anything on you. I didn’t even know you was coming.” “Well, here’s the orders I got” and he said, “Well, have you had supper?” I said, “No.” He said, “Well, go into Columbus, Ohio, up there and Fort Hayes is just on the edge of Columbus, Ohio.” So, I went into Columbus, Ohio and got something to eat. He then said, “Wake up in the morning is 6o’clock I will try to find out something between now and then.” So, the next morning I was there and he said, “You’re not supposed to be at Fort Hazelhigh. You’re supposed to be at fort Harrison Indiana they made a mistake on the orders.” So, they put me on a Greyhound bus and sent me to Fort Harrison. So, I got there and they sent me to the hospital for all my diseases. I was so skinny, they finally got me fattened up a little bit. I had malaria twenty-seven times. So, I stayed there about four months and in July of ’45, I got back home and they put me in a hospital and I was there for four months. They came around one day, and said, “Do you want an honorable discharge?” It was the 23rd of July of 1945. I said, “I’m staying in the army” They said, “We got to clean these hospital” they said, “You have to take an honorable or medical discharge.” and I said, “You mean I can’t stay in the army?” They said, “Nope, you gotta go. We got to clean these hospitals out. They’re expecting 1,000,000 casualties in the first few days they get to Japan and they are gonna fill all these hospitals. So, we got to get everyone out of here that can walk out.” So, they gave me a 30% disability and threw me out on the 23rd of July 1945. Well, the 6th of August they dropped the atomic bomb and the war was over. If it was only a couple more weeks I would have stayed in the regular army, but I was out with disability. So, I had an honorable discharge with a 30% disability so I couldn’t get a job I didn’t have no education I had averaged 8th grade, I imagine, because I didn’t learn much in high school at all because I had to work on a farm. So, I tried to get a job but I couldn’t get a job finally I thought, “I‘m going to have to lie to these people and tell them I’m something and I’m not.” So, I found that an International Harvester was hiring machine operators and bill press operators. Well, I didn’t know what to do I had never seen one of those machines but I thought, “I gotta lie to somebody to get a job.” So, I went out there told him I needed a job and I said I’m a bill press operator and a machine operator before the war but I’ve been gone six years and I forgot a lot of it. So, they hired me and they said, “When can you go to work?” I said, “Right now.” I didn’t want to leave that place without going to work. So, they called the boss to come and get me to give me a job, So, I was going down there and I said “Hey, I don’t know what lay is. I don’t know anything about none of these.” He said, “You don’t need to know any of these. All you have to do is turn a switch on and start the motor and then change the pistons as they put the blades in the pistons.” You don’t have to know nothing to do that. You just turn a switch on and when they get there the motor shuts off and you put them on the conveyor and when you done that there were four more and you put them four on and start them motor. I had two motors and I would turn around and they would go off so I didn’t have time to spit you couldn’t do nothing so I didn’t like that job but it was still a job. Then they told me I was going to have to join a union after ninety days. Well, I didn’t like unions I’d never heard of a union only I was over in New Guinea and we got word that the coal miners were going on a strike for a dollar a day more to work in the mines. I wouldn’t have gone down there for $10 more. Well, they asked for a dollar a day more and they wouldn’t work until they got it so they went on a strike. They almost stopped the whole war. All the machines didn’t have coal to operate so I said, “I don’t want no part of that if they got that much power.” I didn’t want to be a part of that. So I didn’t like the unions and I never did join a union. So I worked there ninety days and I quit because every day I got off I was tired from the job. So, I was went to work for Indianapolis Citizens Gas and I worked there for thirty-four years, but I was only making $42 a week. I had gotten married and had a baby by that time, so, I need another job so I got another job. I got off at 4:30 for the gas company and I would jump on a bus and would get off at the post office and work from 5 to midnight. Then, I had to go home I was only getting four hours of sleep a night. So, I kept that up for quite a while finally someone said they were starting up the National Guard again. This disbanded the national guard after the war 30th Divison. So, I joined the national guard and I kept my two jobs for almost all my life, for thirty-four years. So, in the end I ended up with thirty-six years in the military when I retired. I never lost rank and I took every step up the ladder. I was private, PFC, and so on. I went all the way to A9, which is high as you can as enlisted then. But, I did it with common sense I didn’t have no education I didn’t know how to handle after I had got the hang of it but the soldiers of the regular army I thought were mean but they were just making me deal with what I had to. I really learned from those guys even though I didn’t think I was at the time. So I never had no trouble I was first sergeant for seventeen years and I wore six stripes for some time from 1950-1992 so that’s like forty-two years. So I done pretty good for a dummy and I always enjoyed the military but I sure had to put in a lot of work and had two jobs all my life so I stayed till ‘92 and I had thirty-six years in the active and twelve in the reserve. The military has been good to me I get the medical for the retirement from the military and social security and I also get a gas coupon in retirement so I live happy and everything and I have no regret. The only thing I do regret is I wasn’t around my kids much. My wife raised the kids. I married a girl from Virginia. In two months, about fifty years. She died in 1995 and I’ve never remarried. I’m getting awful feeble. It’s getting hard to breathe, I’m getting emphysema, but I have no regrets. I don’t know if you got anything out of that or not.
AP: Do you recall the day your service ended?
BN: Oh yea. I remember that. The outfit came out for that and they gave me a couple medals and ribbons I had been given and one of the generals pinned them on me and then they had a retirement party for me and they gave me all different kinds of things. All the ribbons that I was entitled to and everything I was entitled to wear and I got twenty-three medals put in an all glass stand where you can hang it on the wall. All my ribbons and everything was in that thing hanging on the wall. They spent quite a bit of money and then they gave me a whole lot of different gifts and things for my retirement. Then I had my whole family up there and everyone shook hands with me and they took the flags down that they flew that day and they gave me the American flag they flew that day. I have no regrets and I’ve been treated better and I’m the state chairman for the Pearl Harbor survivors for eight years. I can’t get rid of it because nobody is able to take it. I’m more able bodied than any of them. So, I’m the state chairman for Pearl Harbor Survivors.
[0:53:35.2]
End.